Leader or leader. A total of 9,232 socialists from Extremadura will be able to choose this Saturday between Miguel Ángel Gallardo and Esther Gutiérrez to lead the PSOE of the community in the second primaries held by this party in ten months motivated by the obligation to renew all the bodies after the congress is held. federal.
That is how long Gallardo has been general secretary, having won the previous internal process against Lara Garlito with 56.2% of the support. He arrived at these primaries after six consecutive absolute majorities in Villanueva de la Serena (Badajoz) and as president of the Badajoz Provincial Council since 2015.
Now he is not mayor, a position from which he resigned to take charge of the Extremaduran PSOE, but he remains the head of the provincial institution, although pointed out by a judge who, following a complaint from the ultra pseudo-union Clean Hands, is investigating the creation of a plaza of public employment in 2017 that fell to the brother of the President of the Government, David Sánchez.
Assembly seat
Gallardo was one of the promoters of the failed merger between the Badajoz cities of Villanueva de la Serena and Don Benito, which was supported by its neighbors in a popular consultation, but which has not materialized due to the arrival of the PP and the Dombenites Government to the Government. local party Siempre Don Benito, with links to the extreme right.
During this time at the head of the Extremaduran socialists, he has had to deal with the inconvenience of leading the main opposition party without having a seat in the Assembly and, therefore, without being able to face the president, María Guardiola, in questions. However, that situation could change because, if he wins the primaries on Saturday, Gallardo is now considering leaving the Badajoz Provincial Council and sitting in Parliament, although the PSOE list would have to run.
The main internal criticism that the current secretary general has received is the lack of integration into the socialist bodies of people who supported the previous candidate in the primaries. At the same time that he assures that this integration has already occurred, he denies what he calls political “pastel”: “That I have 15% and I convert that 15% into proper names, that is why primaries are not held.” holds.
A new management
For this reason, Esther Gutiérrez has now decided to take a step that she did not take in March when the PSOE sought to replace Guillermo Fernández Vara. This Physical Education teacher considers that the party is “broken” due to the management that Gallardo has carried out and her objective is a “horizontal and participatory leadership like that of Guillermo”, with whom she was Minister of Education and Employment for eight years. She is now vice president of the Cáceres Provincial Council.
Gutiérrez has also been categorical in the opposition that she wants to carry out to the PP in Extremadura if she becomes general secretary of the PSOE. He assures that he will vote against Guardiola’s budgets, which will be voted on January 24, and whose future is uncertain given the multiple disagreements that PP and Vox, who were government partners, have brought to light in recent months. He even goes further and has assured that he will break all parliamentary relations with the PP if the right and the extreme right repeal the current Historical Memory law.
His unexpected candidacy aroused rejection in many PSOE positions that are placed next to Miguel Ángel Gallardo. As soon as he formalized his intention to run, an anonymous manifesto was made public, later supported by some so-called historical socialists, against the holding of new primaries with the argument that the previous ones were recent and the current general secretary had not had enough time. to deploy your model.
With all this and after a month in which the two candidates have toured the socialist groups of Extremadura, the militants will have to choose whether to consolidate the current leadership or opt for a new one. On this Saturday there will be a total of 195 voting centers spread throughout Extremadura, whose schedule will depend on the number of militants in each one.
The election of the 5,900 militants from the province of Badajoz and the 3,332 socialists from Cáceres will be known starting at 8 p.m. The leader will be endorsed next weekend at the 15th regional congress to be held in Plasencia.
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